James Van Alen had somehow managed to find his way back into the party. She watched in horror as he stumbled and tripped across the grounds. Caroline didn’t know what to do, but she was on her feet now, heading toward him.
Her nephew sprang up from his table and grabbed Van Alen by the lapels, shouting, “Get hold of yourself, man.”
“Please, Waldorf,” said Caroline, catching up to them. “That’s enough, thank you. People are staring. Let us not draw any more attention to the matter.” But of course, it was too late for that. Her guests were watching them while finishing their cherry compote, as if this were part of the evening’s entertainment.
Emily was at Caroline’s side now, too. “James? Oh James, what’s—” She stopped and brought a hand to her chest. “Have you been drinking?”
“Yesh, yesh I—I have,” James stammered, belched and hung his head, teetering, his balance unsteady. “I’m verry tired,” he said, his backside already butting up against one of the tables, making a few of Caroline’s guests abandon their chairs.
A footman took hold of him, and Waldorf held Emily back as Van Alen was escorted away from the clambake once again. Emily broke free from her cousin’s hold and stormed off toward the cottage. Caroline, all stilted smiles, followed, finding Emily already in the library confronting her father.
“You know James doesn’t drink,” Emily was saying. “You’ve gone and made a fool of him.”
“My dear, James Van Alen needs no assistance from me in that department.”
“Don’t you see, he wants to marry me, and I want to marry him. I’m going to be his wife.”
“Over my dead body.”
And with that, Emily’s eyes grew glassy, her indignation faltering as she covered her face, sobbing into her hands. Though she hated to see her daughter in such pain, Caroline was relieved, certain they’d seen the last of James Van Alen.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Alva
When Alva and Willie K. arrived at the Vanderbilts’ cottage for dinner that night, her father-in-law, Billy, nearly stampeded them in the drawing room. “Well, look who’s finally here.”
It was obvious that Willie’s good looks came from his mother, Louisa Kissam, for his father was a stocky man with scraggly whiskers that irritated Alva’s cheek when he leaned in to kiss her hello.
All the Vanderbilts were there, including the Commodore, a stoop-shouldered man with tufts of cottony white hair. He was accompanied by his second wife, Frank, named after her father’s best friend. She was forty years younger than the Commodore and a good twenty years younger than some of her stepdaughters. She also happened to be the Commodore’s second cousin, which no one thought odd seeing as his previous wife had been his first cousin.
When one of the footmen held out a tray of aperitifs, the Commodore reached for a glass, dismissing the cocktail napkin with a swat of his hand. “Hmmmph,” he said, looking disapprovingly at the fluted sherry glass. “What a bunch of poppycock.”
The Commodore had no use for society or manners. Willie’s grandfather had grown up penniless on Staten Island and had worked sixteen- and eighteen-hour days trying to get his own ferry business started. Back then, there was no need for etiquette. He downed his sherry in two gulps.
Billy reached for an aperitif, raising his glass to his eldest son, Cornelius II. The two of them were talking about a new railroad line that would yield the family another million by its completion. Alva’s ears perked up at that. Another million. She still couldn’t get used to their tossing such staggering amounts of money around like a handful of coins. It would have been nice if some of that money found its way to a worthy cause, but the Commodore was not a big believer in philanthropy. He’d often said, Let others do what I have done, and they need not be around here begging.
Alva pretended she wasn’t eavesdropping on the men while she stood with Willie’s sisters, Margaret and Florence, all encircling Cornelius’s wife, Alice. Alice Vanderbilt was ten years Alva’s senior, and despite Willie’s mother being alive and well, Alice considered herself the Vanderbilts’ matriarch. Alice had an interesting face, long and slender with a dark sprig of tightly wound curls resting on her forehead. Her small, narrow eyes made her appear as if she were always squinting. The other women were listening intently to her talking about how her young sons, Bill and Neily, were constructing a toy railroad of their own.
“It must be in their blood,” said Alva.
“Why, of course it is.” Alice looked at Alva as if she’d said something not only absurd but also obscene.
Alva was thinking of her response when an unsavory-looking man barged into the room. At first, she thought he was an intruder, come to pick their pockets and help himself to all the women’s jewelry. But no one else was alarmed. Maybe he was a deliveryman or perhaps a servant out of livery. Wrong again. The tall, lanky, almost gaunt man in the threadbare suit was Cornelius Jeremiah Vanderbilt, whom they all called Jeremiah.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said to Alva moments later, after having made his rounds to the others. He reminded her of those vagrants who slept in doorways and stole apples and grapes off the carts down on Fourteenth Street and Third Avenue. “And tell me, how are you related to all this?” He gestured to the others, to the room and all its excess.
“I’m Willie’s wife. And you?”
“I, my good lady,” he said with a grandiose bow, “am the Commodore’s ne’er-do-well son.”
“I didn’t realize the Commodore had another son.”
“And I didn’t realize Willie had a wife.”
“Oh my,” said Alva with feigned alarm, “do you think we’re at the right dinner party?”
At that Jeremiah threw his head back, raised his hand to his chest and laughed. He had long slender fingers except for two on his left hand. They were misshapen, slightly bent, the knuckles gnarled. Each time he blinked, his long lashes stirred the tips of the hair hanging down in his steely-blue eyes. Looking past the beard, she could now see a family resemblance, Jeremiah looking more like the Commodore than his brother Billy.
“So, where have they been hiding you?” asked Alva. “And why weren’t you at our wedding?”
“I wasn’t invited. I told you, I’m the ne’er-do-well son.” He sounded proud of the title, as if that distinguished him from the others. The footman came by with a tray of aperitifs. Jeremiah took two glasses, passing one to Alva. “It’s a rough crowd here tonight. Billy can’t stand me. Neither can Alice. Watch out for her. She doesn’t like you one bit, I can tell already.”
“Thanks for the warning.”